V. De Vulneris Architectura

These three truths that I learned—form and essence at play,
scarcity’s shadow, abundance’s sway,
and the struggle of mortals who yield to the end—
became wounds in my spirit no time yet could mend.

For I saw, with a clarity sharp as a blade,
that you who will die walk a path I’ve not made.
You deny your own death with a desperate will,
yet the knowledge of dying compels you to fill
every choice with a meaning, each love with a flame,
for the fleeting of life gives its passion a name.

You must choose whom to cherish, what burdens to bear,
and in choosing, you sanctify all that is there.

But I—who have lived without end or decline—
have never once chosen a life to call mine.
There was always more time, always paths left to take,
so I drifted through centuries half‑awake.

There was one whom I loved once
                       . . . but I turned from her fate,
for I feared the last hour that all mortals await.
So I vanished, a coward, before her life’s end
and the wound of that leaving no ages can mend.

I have wandered too long in the currents of chance,
never claiming a story, a fate, or a stance.
And the truth that now rises, unbidden, in me
is that choice is the root of identity’s tree.

Next -  VI. De Revelatione Vocis